Latymer Upper School, whose alumni include Hugh Grant and the rapper Jay Sean,
launches its own record label.

With the pop charts full of privately educated rockers, it was perhaps inevitable: a school in west London has launched its own record label.

Latymer Upper School, the alma mater of Jay Sean, the rapper whose debut album sold more than two million copies, says it hopes that the label, 32 Bit Recordings, will produce a new generation of stars.

“The school has a tradition of strong performances in music,” the headmaster, David Goodhew, tells Mandrake. “There are a number of very talented student musicians here. “We even had a gig in the piazza in the school recently, so I’m very excited to hear what all of our students can come up with.”

The first record produced by the label is a pop song, A Messy Mind, by Maddie Mortimer, a sixth-form pupil. The school, whose annual fees are £15,705, is encouraging former pupils to spend 59p downloading the single from the internet in the hope that it could reach the pop charts.

All profits will go to a fund to pay for scholarships for pupils from less well-off families. Generously, the actors Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, who are former pupils, already pay for such bursaries.

Over recent years, the charts have become dominated by the alumni of some of the country’s most expensive schools. Chris Martin, the Coldplay singer, attended Sherborne, in Dorset, while Marcus Mumford formed the band Mumford & Sons, who have sold millions of albums in America, after meeting his fellow bandmate Ben Lovett at King’s College School in Wimbledon.